Nox Fumus
Nox Fumus is SsVivid's character who originated for a small group roleplay based on a Zarosian quartet with respect to the four ancient elements. Of ice, shadow, blood, and smoke, Nox filled the role as the last. She is assumed to be around the age of thirty, and is the distant mostly-human descendant of a long-dead Smoke elemental. Through a freak accident, Nox herself seems to have been restored to her ancestor's full power over the element. She is most closely aligned as a neutral evil character. Life History Infancy Nox was found as an infant out in the harsh conditions of the Kharidan Desert, thought to be only half a year old at the time. The man who found her was named Tariq, and worked as one of the barmen in the Bandit's Camp. He saved her life by taking her in and providing for her, letting her sleep in the meager conditions on the bar's second floor. He never pretended that he was her father, and left no mystery to her unclear past. He had no hesitation in explaining that her birth family probably fell victim to a raid by the very bandits she now lived in the same city with, and that she probably crawled away from the scene and fell asleep from the exhaustion. That was how he found her, after all - alone and unconscious. Childhood As a young girl, Nox had difficulty associating with others her age - or anyone at all, really, aside from Tariq. She seemed fairly antisocial, preferring to sit in corners and think or to investigate the dark secrets of the desert in solitude. Occasionally she did spend time with the other youths living in the camp, but when she wasn't trying to start an unwanted fight for the fun of grappling with and defeating her less-aggressive peers, they were mocking and teasing her for her unusual habits. Often, the two results went together, and occasionally went too far. Over time, she developed a talent for using a spiked flail that she found in a pirate's chest along the River Elid. It had washed up in years past and since been buried in the sand. It was only by chance that Nox happened upon it, but it was a poor day for the brown-haired boy who felt its sting after shouting one too many taunts. It would be years before she could handle it with prowess, but at the age they were, the right idea was all she needed to cause him very real pain. The Well Nox was eleven, and she had gone out into the desert again to explore. It wasn't the first time she had stumbled across the well out on the middle of the dunes, but this time, a trio of other children had followed her there. There was something eerie about the well, foreboding even. Even for Nox, something innate warned her to stay away, and there's no doubt the other children felt the same. They preyed on this rare fear in Nox, cruel as children tend to be to each other. They dared her, challenged her bravery, to climb down into the dried-up well, falsely promising her rewards if she went through with the dare. And she did. Nox began to lower herself into the well against her better judgment, careful as she could manage. It wasn't careful enough. Nox lost her grip on the walls and the rope she was climbing down and plummetted into the depths of the well. It was all too late that she realized the danger she was in, inhaling the first whiff of terrible, searing smoke. Really, there was no way she could have known that she had found the very "Smokey Well" of legend that the bandits said held a key for their imprisoned their hero, the champion of their god. She landed on her back, hacking against the thick and blinding layers of smoke rolling around in the cavern she had entered. Panicking and in desperate pain, the poison of the smoke was already seeping into her veins. She took a final, agonizing breath. Then... something changed, something mysterious and rare. The pure elemental smoke that was engulfing her entire being found something in her that it understood. Her body began to absorb the toxin in ways similar to how The Adventurer absorbed the pure death magic of the Temple of Light, but on a level far deeper and far more permanent. The raw runic energy in the smoke bound itself to her very being. Perhaps it recognized itself in her long-forgotten Elemental heritage telling of her lone Smoke Elemental ancestor, and perhaps Zaros, the god of her people the Bandits, was smiling down on her that day. Whatever it was, it forever changed Nox, blessing and cursing her with the dangerous ancient power that was Smoke. Adulthood By the time Nox had grown into the image of a woman, she had come to be truly dangerous. Not only was she lacking some of the natural inhibitions and morals of other humans, but she had been living for many years with both her flail and her smoke. The flail had become her go-to weapon, reliably at her side, and the smoke that continuously poured from her body was becoming locked in her iron grip. She had been forced to live with the strange magic that had latched to her for half her life, and had come to understand its movements on a deep level. She was restless. Still underwhelmed by the available company in the sandy camp and moved only by the religion of the place, she began to feel the need to move, to travel. There was no satisfaction for her, earning money in the bar she was raised over and handling the people around her who she couldn't hope to understand. The Calling Her restless ended one day when she began to feel a pull away from the desert. With no hesitation, she left the small Bandits' Camp and headed for the mainland, feeling herself being summoned by some supernatural means to the far northwest. Lurking through the shadows, Nox stole and killed her way across the map, following the force she didn't need to understand. The trip was long, but it came to an end in Ardougne, where she found the powerful beacon that called out for her. It was there that she met Drazker Vekon, a dark and powerful Zarosian magician with inhuman power over shadow. She approached him as he murdered a man in the streets, speaking out to him as the one to whom she was drawn from so far away. She spoke to him of the old desert god, Zaros, and he spoke in turn in the ancient language. He, with two peers, had performed a ritual who would draw out one truly fearsome individual with power over smoke to complete their quartet. Upon realizing that Nox was not educated in the secrets of the Ancient, he delved into her mind and, with the help of a Zarosian blessing that fed him power, Drazker poured knowledge of the past into the newcomer's mind. And so came Nox into the knowledge of secrets unique to the god of power. Unfortunately for Nox, her ecstacy and rapture at nearly direct contact with her Golden Lord was not eternal. His terrorism of the Ardougnian kingdom brought wrath onto Drazker Vekon, and within the year he was slain at the hands of city defenders. This left Nox far from home, surviving on stolen goods and lurking the shadows with an insatiable craving for her previous rapture. Days turned into months which turned into years, and it was only after three years and at least as many Ardougnan power changes that the city's call to her faded. For a time, she had held onto a strand of intuition that told her there were still forces within the kingdom working for the greater good of Zaros. Somehow, though, something began to change. Maybe it had simply been too long since a Zarosian - secretly or not - had been on the kingdom's throne, or perhaps it was just the powerful ritual magic that Drazker the Third had performed to summon her so far finally fading away. Whatever it was, even with a dread-prince, Drazker VI, son of the previous, masquerading around the city, the ties Ardougne had on Nox were dissolved. So, suddenly more wayward than she had ever been, she began to travel elsewhere. Guided mostly by instinct, since over the years Nox had become almost as much animal as man, she began to head back towards the eastern kingdoms. Maybe it was Senntisten that called to her, or maybe she was simply homesick and knew nowhere else to go, but she found herself returning slowly to the desert lands. Falling Action For years, Nox lurked in the dark corners of Al Kharid. She tended to be fleetingly spotted on rooftops or the city walls, observing in silence like a gargoyle. She felt lost, longing for a way to return to the rapture of being close to her faith, but not knowing how to achieve her goal. She had minimal interaction directly with common citizens, but generally survived by stealing food and rummaging through scraps. Eventually even she felt stagnant enough to move on yet again. Trying to sense by gut intuition from where there was a strong calling for those of her ilk, she crept north. She passed through the shadows of Draynor, Taverley, and Burthorpe on her way into the frigid north. There was a presence there, she hoped, that was calling to her in the same way her quartet had first called to her. Scaling the icy mountain walls of troll country, Nox trudged, hungry and chilled, through the unforgiving terrain. She ate whatever fungal mountain growth she could find, and made her way onwards with religious fervor. Nox spent days crawling deeper into the chill of the mountain, nursing her numbing limbs and trying weakly to fight off the cold with what little help her blistering magic could give her. The temperatures fell gradually enough that she didn't even notice when it started to snow, or when all the wildlife had died and icicles started to crust the land underfoot. Weather around her blistered, and she felt an aching exhaustion come over her while standing numbly in a snow bank. She hadn't shivered for a while. The greatest pity was that there was no one to miss her. Personality Nox is an antisocial sociopath. While she is not inherently aggressive towards others, she has no natural inhibitions that stop her from murdering an innocent citizen who happens to come to close or rub her the wrong way. She tends to pick sides in conflicts based solely on what gives her the greatest advantage, and has no qualms with forcing toxic smoke down someone's windpipes merely on convenience. She dislikes being within a few feet of other people, and is likely to violently attack if her personal space is violated for more than a few seconds. This is especially true if she feels threatened. Furthermore, Nox has difficulty communicating, often speaking in archaic and highly metaphorical ways, only to find herself both annoyed and frustrated when others don't understand her word choice. Her social adaptation is so nonexistant that even her bodily movements with simple actions like walking are macabre and inhuman. In addition to Nox's sensitivity to personal space, she also has a laundry list of hangups about fairly arbitrary things. For example she is reluctant to bend over and pick things up when she is standing at full height. Appearance Facial Nox's facial features are sharp and dramatic. Her cheeks, nose, and chin are severe, with heavily lidded, darkened eyes and a somewhat sunken in face. Her irises are smokey grey, and her lips are thin. Short grey-black hair falls over the right side of her face. She has a tendency to leer. Bodily Nox is physically fit, and fairly muscular for a woman. Her skin has a slightly yellow-grey tinge to it, which appears almost sickly. She is not especially voluptuous, but her frame is thin. Athletically, Nox is particularly agile. Even in regular movement, she tends to slink along walls or floors, preferring to move more like a spider or cat than a common human would. She dresses in sturdy, thick, grey cloth and keeps her flail threadded into her belt. Nox's body also constantly produces smoke, set in a perpetual state of magical charging. Rather than release the noxious substance into the air, she gathers it into the form of a cloak, which falls over her shoulders and back as she travels. She has done this so constantly for so many years that she no longer even thinks to hold it in place, but rather had programmed it habitually into her subconscious. Other *"Nox Fumus" is meant to address her as nightsmoke. *As of summer 2013, Nox scored a 28 on the Mary Sue Test. Category:Characters Category:Zarosian Category:Ancient Magic user Category:Humans Category:Elemental Category:Female Category:Neutral Category:Evil Category:Orphans Category:Deceased